Noah Song pitching for Clearwater tomorrow. This year he'll be strictly a reliever but more a 2-inning reliever. Velocity is up since he restarted after the injury. I guess we'll find out tonight where he is.

One note - while Clearwater does not have TV broadcasts, Bradenton who they are playing does. Game is listed on my MLB.TV page.

Well it's nice to see somebody finally lay it out.

The key passage:

It all figures to come to a head by the end of next month. Unless Song gets injured again during the rehab assignment, a predicament that would stop the 30-day clock and rewind it to the beginning, the Phillies will have to make a decision on him by July 29.

By then, there will be less than 90 days left in the season. But according to a league source, the Phillies would be allowed to retain Song as long as they kept him on the roster for the duration of the season and however many days spill over into next year to reach the 90-day mark.

So, that's a pretty low bar. If he's not up to it they could still hide him for most of August, use the extra roster spot on a more usable pitcher in September, and then he'd be free of the Rule 5 stipulations by May 1 of next year.

I can't help but root for Song just because of fulfilling the military commitment. Hopefully he can at least be an 8th reliever, it doesn't seem that unrealistic, but we shall see.

Clean inning of work for Phillies Rule 5 pick Noah Song who is making his first professional appearance since 2019 … He picks up one strikeout here with a pretty good slider

Song sat 91-93 in the inning with slider at 78-82, and change at 82-83 pic.twitter.com/ZlKUbOn2kJ6

— Mitch Rupert ( @Mitch_Rupert ) June 28, 20232

(Mod’s note: fixed date in quoted tweet.)

So he ended up pitching today after all? Or is Mitch in the future?

(Edit, I guess the board or bkox specifically - or me - has settings on GMT or something, since I see Mitch's actual tweet is date-stamped the 28th)

well this is weird... it shows correct when I copy the code from twitter.. but the board shows it as the 29th.

Yeah, copying and pasting tweet code is... fraught. About the only thing you can do is look at it in the preview window after you paste it into your post, and do manual cleanup.

The articles implied tomorrow but I guess it was today. He sure threw a lot of breaking balls. I wonder if the Phillies really want him to work on the offspeed stuff because they know his fastball is just not going to be more than 93 this year.

Phillies first rounder Justin Crawford smokes a two-run triple to center field for Clearwater … Ball comes off the bat at 104 mph. Crawford went first to third in 7 seconds flat pic.twitter.com/rg8zRDFcLn20

— Mitch Rupert ( @Mitch_Rupert ) June 28, 20231

Hall 3-5, HR, 2B, 3 RBI. Hopefully we see him in Philly on Friday.

I feel like the team has telegraphed it by talking about it so much.